


from the perfect start to the finish line

by idaate



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Characters are tagged in the order that they appear, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, No Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-28 09:40:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10087958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/idaate/pseuds/idaate
Summary: Gonta’s about to open his mouth to respond and to ask why exactly Tsumugi’s being vague as hell when suddenly, Sonia bangs against the infirmary door with a screech, clawing through the glass andscreamingan ear piercing, guttural scream.Her face smudges against the glass, streaking down and trekking blood down behind it. Gonta’s thrown against the back of the room, and clenching the straps of his backpack, he watches in dim awe as Shirogane opens the door and Hoshi bashes Sonia’s head to the ground. It lasts only a second, but her body is still lying there, nevertheless, scarily still and very much dead.After a couple moments of cursing and kicking the corpse, however, Hoshi kicks Sonia outside of the door and shuts it. “This fucking sucks.” He mutters.The last days of the world, as seen through the eyes of children.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is the 400th fic in the ndrv3 tag oh snap.
> 
> edit: this is no longer the 400th fic in the ndrv3 tag i had to update it bc i saw a mistake i made and it got bumped to the 401st fic in the ndrv3 tag i am so upset. fuck you sav you win this round.

Gonta doesn’t know what to  _ do  _ all of a sudden, back pressed against the wall of the infirmary as screams echo around the halls. He had had to check in on Tsumugi after the girl had been sent there earlier in the day and, deciding to be a diligent student, checked in to see how she had been doing.

And then, suddenly, there had been screams echoing down the hallway and Tsumugi was pulling him inside, face flush with fear.

Gonta stares at the body of the school nurse (at least he thinks that’s their nurse, his face is covered by a cloth so he can’t tell) on the ground in awe, dimly aware of the sound of rushing water in the background.

“Gonta does believe...that  _ that’s  _ our nurse.”

“Yeah.” Tsumugi gasps, though whether her shortness of breath came from the effort it took to pull Gonta out of the hallway or from the sight of the nurse’s body, Gonta wasn’t exactly sure. “Ryouma killed him.”

“Oh.” Gonta blinks and, after a moment, finds himself breaking out in cold sweat.

As if on cue, the rushing water stops and Hoshi himself appears on the scene, wiping his hands with a towel. “Welcome to my twisted mind.” He says dryly, and Gonta wonders how exactly he’s able to keep such a presence in a situation such as this one.

“Gokuhara-san, have you seen any of them?” Tsumugi asks timidly, cautiously, as if talking to a startled animal. It unnerves him, a little.

He’s about to open his mouth to respond and to ask why exactly Tsumugi’s being vague as hell when suddenly, Sonia bangs against the infirmary door with a screech, clawing through the glass and  _ screaming  _ an ear piercing, guttural scream.

Her face smudges against the glass, streaking down and trekking blood down behind it. Gonta’s thrown against the back of the room, and clenching the straps of his backpack, he watches in dim awe as Shirogane opens the door and Hoshi bashes Sonia’s head to the ground. It lasts only a second, but her body is still lying there, nevertheless, scarily still and very much dead.

After a couple moments of cursing and kicking the corpse, however, Hoshi kicks Sonia outside of the door and shuts it. “This fucking sucks.” He mutters.

Gonta nods shakily, Sonia’s blond hair matted red with blood still flashing in his mind. “Gonta...is going to assume that something’s terribly wrong here.”

“What tipped you off.” Ryouma raises an eyebrow, and walks into the side room again. “I’ll get something to wipe that off you.”

He looks down and indeed, there’s some blood on his shoes, on his pants.

_ Sonia’s _ blood.

He feels sick.

  


.

  


Rantarou’s breathing is ragged, tired. Angie’s putting bandages onto the stub that was once his arm, trying to stop the bleeding as soon as possible, but it doesn’t seem to be having any effect at the moment and she bites her lip.

Kaito’s not doing well with the sight of blood, and instead feeds what’s left of their water supply back into Amami’s mouth, gently holding up his head and urging him to  _ drink something  _ because  _ like hell he’s gonna turn.  _

Angie wonders what sort of sin she committed in order to invoke Kami-sama’s wrath like this. It must have been a  _ terribly _ awful one, right? Why couldn’t Kami-sama have just punished  _ her,  _ and not the whole  _ world?!  _ It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that Amami was bit and she wasn’t.

Amami’s still a bit out there after having lost so much blood, and snickers a little. “I’ve been bit, y’know.” He snorts. “It’s probably already climbed past my shoulder. Can you cut that off, too? Gotta be fast. Gotta be quick.”

Angie smiles a smile that doesn’t reach past her eyes. “Sorry, n-no can do! We tied off your arm, so the blood didn’t flow that far...a-alright? You’re gonna be a-okay!” It’s easy to tell she’s trying to convince herself more than she’s trying to convince Rantarou.

“It’s already getting even higher. Speedy. Like sanic, my dudes.” Amami sighs. 

Kaito makes idle, half-hearted chatter with Amami in order to keep him distracted and Angie applies as much pressure as she can to the wound. They managed to find a whole wine cellar after Rantarou had been bit and decided to go there to do the ‘operation’. In addition, the wine had worked as a good temporary aesthetic, giving Amami some sort of distraction from the pain in his arm until it just wasn’t there anymore.

Rantarou’s cheeks are still flushed and he’s sweating, though whether it’s because of the pain or because of the disease neither Kaito or Angie know.

It’s painful, really, and Angie feels numb and disgusted at herself for wondering if it’s safe to be around Amami. They’re friends, both of them, of  _ course  _ it’s safe to be around Rantarou! H-he’s  _ Rantarou,  _ for God’s sake. He let’s her pet his dogs and sometimes shares lunch with her and tells silly, stupid jokes in an attempt to make her feel better. He’s told both Kaito and her The Cheerio Joke™ nearly every single night that they’ve had a chance to rest since this whole ordeal began. He’s the one who helps  _ keep  _ her safe - just as she does the same for him - not the one that she needs to be kept safe from.

They wait until he’s asleep (they’re  _ hiding  _ from him, disgusting) and no longer in danger of bleeding to death before they discuss what they need to  _ do.  _

“If this doesn’t work,” Momota points out tensely, “we’re going to be locked in a cellar with one of  _ those things. _ ”

“Do you think Angie doesn’t know that?” Angie replies, and her voice is choked up and she can barely _speak._ She hoped Kami-sama was watching. “But we’re not--”

“Gonna leave him here? Hell no.” Momota scoffs, but it’s half-hearted, tired. “I’d rather take the first option than leave him here alone.”

There’s a pause, and both of them look at his sleeping form, Angie wincing at Rantarou’s chest as it fluttering weakly up and down. Angie suddenly has an overwhelming urge to pet his hair, but like hell she’s gonna disturb him when he’s sleeping so peacefully. It’s not like she sees him so peaceful any other time, nowadays.

“We’ve been in here for nearly a day without food or water, however.” Kaito points out. “We lost the whole camp running away from that hoard.”

Angie pauses, winces. “M-mmm...do you want Angie to go out and scavenge for something?”

“Nah, you’ve gotta watch over Amami. I get lightheaded at too much blood, and that won’t work out for either of us if his arm starts bleeding again, right? I should go now, while I still have the strength. It won’t be long.”

To emphasize his words, Momota takes a bottle and hefts it up. “This can work as a weapon if I smash it outside on something, right?”

“Don’t go looking for trouble.” Angie tries to be playful and pouts, but it isn’t working. “Just get a couple canteens of water and enough food to last three days and that’s good enough, okay? Don’t push yourself.”

Kaito laughs and walks away. The few candles that they have set up as a source of light don’t extend all the way into the far reaches of the cellar, and pretty soon, the only way that Angie knows that he’s still there is the ever receding sound of his steps. And even that is gone soon once he removes the heavy latch that keeps the door shut and them safe. After the heavy swinging of the door, he’s  _ out  _ there. In  _ danger. _

Angie realizes that she’ll have to replace the latch herself and stands up to leave, but halts at the sound of a groan. Glancing behind her, she sees Rantarou blinking groggily into consciousness. Door forgotten, she sits by his side again. 

“Hey...don’t push yourself, ‘kay?” She soothes. Amami winks in response.

“Hey, Angie?”

“Yeah?”

“I--” Rantarou let’s out a rattling cough, and Angie has to direct her eyes away from the sinew that’s creeping up his neck. “--have a joke for you.”

  
  


.

  
  


_ Can I become one of them?  _ Kiibo thought.

_ Can  _ he, actually? 

It’s probably a bad time to be considering something like that, what with the robot pressed against the door of the small corner convenience store that he, Iruma, and Maki had decided to take shelter in. 

_ Someone  _ had forgotten to lock the door, but no one knew exactly who the culprit had been, and at this point, no one had the time to be pointing fingers. All fingers, hands, and backs were pressed firmly against the doorway, desperately trying to keep them out and desperately hoping that things would turn out okay, because they don’t want to think about what might happen if things turn out  _ not  _ okay.

It’s lucky that Kiibo was the one by the door when the first one broke through, it’s mouth harmlessly latching onto his metal limbs. The only damage that he sustained had been a ripped shirt which, actually, kinda  _ sucked  _ because it was a really cute one--

But whatever. The door was open, letting in one unwanted guest after another and it had to be  _ closed.  _ Kiibo quickly got to work on that, back pressed against the door. Iruma and Maki soon came to his aid after seeing the situation at hand, and together, the three of them pressed against the door and prayed to  _ God  _ that things would work out.

And, indeed, the pounding seems like it’s subsiding and Kiibo wants to  _ cry  _ with relief, fingers intertwining tentatively with Iruma and Maki as they hold their breath over the atrocities happening outside.

“I-it’s...it’s okay...we’ve got this.” Maki gasps, and Kiibo squeezes her hand a little bit tighter.

  
  


.

  
  


It’s by fate (chance? Korekiyo doesn’t believe in that sort of thing) that Shinguji stumbles upon them. It’s been only (only?) 43 days since he fled the school, leaving his classmates and - more importantly - his sister behind. While he had sometimes spotted some of his classmates in the distance, it was much safer to keep distance from them. Who knows if they were infected or not, right?

Right?

Such had been the case with Peko and Kuzuryuu! What a pathetic display that had been, Korekiyo watching it perched on the edge of a building roof. It had been entertaining, to be sure, watching Kuzuryuu turn and back the girl onto the edge of another roof until Peko herself fell over the edge and landed with a dull  _ splat _ on the ground.

“I’d give that a solid eight out of ten! Another beautiful display of human emotions at work.” Korekiyo had pulled the straw out of his juice box with his mouth and inhaled, making a sharp sucking sound before spitting it down and watching it tumble down, down, down until it landed next to what had been Peko.

Korekiyo’s looking for food, muscles tense and limbs tired because he's not used to doing anything more than turning the pages of books, feeding his brain fake food and not the other way around. He’s tired, dammit, and watching people die again and again and again is amusing at first, but it loses it’s appeal quicker than it should.

He had spent the first couple weeks looting dead bodies, old cafeterias, stores with no windows. And at first, it worked! But after staying in the same area for over a month, walkers replaced the lack of food and Korekiyo had to move on.

But two whole days went by without a good meal, and Korekiyo, to his great shame, is starting to grow a little desperate.

So when he sees people -  _ sleeping,  _ thank God - he knows that there’s gonna be food (probably) so what does he have to lose, right?

There are three, taking refuge under a rusted car. It’s obvious that the location is temporary, and Shinguji is surprised - and disgusted - that no one’s on watch. Talk about negligence. 

Ducking under a string of cans that’s been strung up as a makeshift alarm, Shinguji realizes he knows these people.

Kaede, Tenko, and Himiko. Disgusting.

Tentatively, he takes the safety off of his gun, just in case a walker  _ does _ show up or if one of the three wakes up and gets rather vicious.

Shinguji takes a couple minutes to clean up the food that’s just lying around, and he wonders exactly how much thought the three of them put into surviving. Really, it wasn’t surprising, now that he thought about it - none of them struck him as very ‘survival’ type people but, then again, Korekiyo hadn’t thought that he himself would make it very far. 

Scooping all the food into a bag, he’s just about to make off with the spoils when--

“....Korekiyo-san?”

Korekiyo freezes as, ironically, Kaede wakes up, rubbing her eyes tiredly, confused at the situation. “You’re not...one of them, right…?”

Tenko’s stirring, too, and her own face is running through a variety of emotions. Korekiyo notices there’s a gun lying next to the girl.

Going with first instinct, Korekiyo grabs Himiko’s sleeping form, waking her up with a jolt before pressing the gun against her temple. “Nobody move.” He says, quoting thousands of thriller movies at once. His voice is so hoarse, however, that it scares him a little. The human body really  _ did  _ deteriorate rather quickly, far too quickly.

Himiko’s slowly stirring into consciousness and Kaede and Tenko are wide awake now, staring at the situation and being forced to take it all in in one go. The bag of supplies is by Korekiyo’s foot, and he slowly begins to push it behind him. In response, Tenko pulls out her own gun and points it shakily at Korekiyo.

“I’m going to take this food, alright?” Korekiyo finds himself cringing slightly at the clicheness of the lines, but this isn’t a time to be picky. “That way no one will be hurt, and we can all go on our own separate ways.”

Himiko tries to claw at Korekiyo’s arm, but Tenko shakes her head at the girl rapidly and Himiko falls silent and still. Korekiyo wiggles the barrel of the gun a little more, reminding them that he’s literally holding the magician’s life in his hands. “I’ll kill you if you kill her.” Tenko mutters.

“Oh, really? Equivalent exchange is still present in this kind of situation, it seems.” 

It’s awkward, really, Korekiyo shuffling slowly and trying to get the food to move without actually holding it, cursing under his breath as a can falls out and he has to awkward shove it back into the bag with his foot. The whole ordeal takes quite a while, and no one really knows whether to feel tense or  _ laugh  _ at the sheer stupidity of the situation. 

Shinguji face burns with embarrassment as he maneuver, and in the back of his mind he realizes that one of  _ them  _ could sneak up behind them and--

“Hey...why don’t you hang out with us instead of fighting? Don’t we have a better chance that way?”

Kaede’s voice cuts through the silence, throwing all three of the other people in the situation off guard and breaking Korekiyo’s train of thought. He sputters indignantly, and is about to shoot some sort of condescending remark at the girl when he walks into the chain of cans and they clang noisily against each other, startling him and causing his finger to 

slip.

Korekiyo’s finger pulls the trigger, and with a sudden  _ bang!  _ there’s blood all over his arm and Kaede’s crying and Himiko’s scarily limp in their arms and  _ this wasn’t what was supposed to happen he didn’t actually wanna  _ kill  _ the kid this wasn’t supposed to happen at all. _

“Well, fuck.” Korekiyo mutters, lightheaded, and Tenko lets out a choked sound as she pulls the trigger.

  


.

  
  


“Hey hey, what if we end up being the only people in the world?” 

Ouma pokes the fire with a stick, taking it out of the fire and blowing on the embers. Toujou looks up from her place by the window, sighing tiredly. She doesn’t have  _ time  _ to be dealing with another one of Ouma’s psychological questions - she needs to chart their route for the next couple days, it’s lucky that they managed to clear the entire apartment building out but they  _ need  _ to move out eventually - but thankfully, Saihara takes up the responsibility of answering him instead.

“That won’t happen, Ouma-kun.” He reassures. “I’m sure our classmates are still out there.”

Ouma raises an eyebrow, smirking as he says, “Eh, and only our classmates?” and Saihara sputters.

“W-well, obviously not  _ only  _ them. It’s all of them and a bunch of other people too.”

“Do you really think  _ aaall  _ of them are still alive?” Ouma’s stock photo grin only widens, and bangs his stick against the concrete floor. Sparks fly, and Toujou is certain that a couple of them fell on Ouma’s hands, but he doesn’t even flinch. “I bet at least two of them are dead. Maybe three. Maybe four. Maybe five. Maybe--”

_ “Ouma,”  _ Toujou warns, but Ouma pays her no heed.

“Maybe  _ all  _ of them are dead! Maybe we’re the only kids left of that class and everyone else is  _ dead.  _ And we’re gonna be dead soon, too. Isn’t that weird to think? We’re gonna be  _ dead dead dead.  _ As dead as a doornail.” He laughs tiredly. “Who do you think we’ll meet, when we die? That God that the Christians talk about? Or maybe Angie’s god? Or maybe it’ll be nothing at all and we’ll just be floating in a blob of nothingness. Or.  _ Or.”  _ He gasps, almost excited, and the map in Toujou’s hands crumples up. “Or maybe  _ we’ll  _ cease to exist! We won’t have any memories at all, we won’t have any  _ thoughts  _ at all and--”

Saihara slaps him, and though Ouma’s nearly facing away from her now, she can still see the hints of a grin on a face.

“Don’t talk like that.” Saihara says, and the tiredness in his voice feels like a slice through Toujou’s heart. She misses when he was passionate when he talked about things, back when there were still things around to be passionate about. “We’re not gonna die, and none of our classmates are dead, either. We’re all doing okay.”

“Whatever you say, Saihara-chan~!” Ouma chirps, and then yawns, stretching over dramatically.  _ “Uwaah,  _ I’m  _ super  _ tired! Nighty night, guys! Let’s see if I wake up, or if a zom-zom kills me in my sleep!”

“Goodnight, Ouma.” Toujou says quietly, and the boy promptly lays on his side. Despite his promises of sleep, his eyes are wide open, reflecting the glare of the fire in his eyes.

Toujou wonders if the reason he went on that whole spiel was to try and get Saihara to be passionate about something again, but then dismisses it because  _ no,  _ it’s just Ouma being Ouma, he doesn’t have that deep of a thought process. 

She sighs and smooths out the map that got messed up in the process of things.

  
  


.

  
  


It’s a five story drop out the window and a couple hundred of them wandering out in the halls, so the three of them are stuck between a rock and a hard place. Gonta’s pacing back and forth, rubbing his hands over and over like he’s trying to scrape off the blood that isn’t there. Tsumugi can just sit and watch him for an hour or so, sometimes, because it’s not like they really have that much else to do here nowadays.

Ryouma sits on the windowsill most of the time, legs sometimes dangling over the edge, sometimes safely tucked under him. Shirogane used to tell him to stop doing that, but after the first week, she gave up.

The infirmary has running water, by some miracle, so not only are they able to use the toilet whenever they like (huzzah!), but that’s an infinite water source.

There’s a shower, too, so they can all stay clean, which is more than they could ever ask for at a time like this. Most people who are still out there don’t have this kind of luxury.

“Do you ever suppose,” Gonta says once, and Shirogane glances over at him, away from the bloodstained spot on the ground where Ryouma smashed Sonia’s head in, “that we’ll be saved?”

“Nah.” Ryouma answers all too quickly, and Shirogane’s mouth twists.

“Ryouma-san!” She almost playfully (when was the last time she did something genuinely funny, actually) scolds, and looks back at Gonta with an all-too forced grin.

“Ignore him, Gonta-san! Of  _ course  _ we’ll get out of here!”

It’s not clear if her words have any effect on him in the slightest, as he sighs and continues his pacing.

  
  


.

  
  


They think they’re doing okay, they think they’re doing alright, when Maki lets out a scream.

Iruma’s heart is thrown so hard against her chest that she’s sure that it’s going to burst right out. There’s  _ ice  _ in her vein as she sees the thing latching onto Maki’s neck through the door gap, tearing away and flesh and exposing sinews to her great horror.

Kiibo brings his foot down -  _ hard  _ \- against the thing’s head, and after an awful convulsion, it stops moving.

Iruma is grabbing Maki, her eyes wide and mouth gasping for air like a fish out of water. She tentatively touches her neck and draws it away in an instant, blood staining her fingers, and she cries.

That isn’t a very good thing of her to do, honestly, when Maki should be looking for comfort in her eyes, or, at the very least, not such a helpless face.

“Save her.” She chokes out at Kiibo, and the room feels cold. “Y-you’re a robot, you can do that, right? You...you can do that.”

Kiibo stares at her, opens his mouth, closes it, and the room grows colder still. The pounding is still there, still ringing in her ears, but it’s subsiding and they’re safe  _ now. _

_ Now.  _ The word drips with venom inside her mind. Why couldn’t be safe a mere minute ago? Then Maki wouldn’t be--

She cradles Maki's hand in her own, squeezes it, begs Maki to come back, because she just doesn’t know what to  _ do,  _ but the only response that she gets is a blank stare that looks beyond her shoulder and at the ceiling. The hand doesn’t squeeze back.

  
  


.

  
  


There’s a faint roar of a car, bullet holes in the rearview window as it drives away.

Momota sits in the front seat, driving the car as Toujou gently directs him the right way, white dress all dirtied up till it’s far more brown and red than white. There’s a cat on her lap, and she pets it’s dirtied fur as it sleeps quietly.

There are four squished, tired people in the next row of seats and, indeed, only one of them is awake, Saihara’s tired eyes looking out the window while Ouma sleeps on his shoulder. Two others hug each other in their sleep as they dream of things far, far away, like a robot who’ll protect his friends and a god who punishes only  _ Angie  _ and Angie alone.  


Even further in the back sits Tenko and Kaede, accompanied by four giant bags of supplies. Kaede’s whispering to Saihara through the gaps in the seats, but he doesn’t seem to be up to responding. Tenko’s staring at her hands, not looking like she’s ready to respond to anything  _ ever  _ again.

The car sputters and slows down a little as they pass by a high school, several stories high.

“Say goodbye, everyone.” Toujou, smoothing down her dress almost as if in a sign of respect. The car remains silent save for a chorus snores in the back.

The car starts to speed up again when Saihara something.

He leans forward and frantically grabs the Momota by the shoulder, who curses and glances behind.

“Woah, no backseat driving, alright?” 

The boy scowls and motions frantically towards a window on the topmost floor. “Look!”

There’s silence as the others squint awkwardly at the window, unsure exactly what he means, but then the Kaede gasps.

“Hey, is that…!”

Three people wave frantically from one of the windows.

**Author's Note:**

> This is actually an old fic that I began to write for some ocs, but rewrote and finished to fit the ndrv3 kids.
> 
> Please leave comments and kudos if you enjoyed!


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